Colin Thubron has spent a lifetime exploring Asia, and he displays his significant regional knowledge and experience in Shadow of the Silk Road. Universally acknowledged as one of our best living travel writers, Thubron brings to this book the astute perception for which he is known and the beautiful prose style he has honed for more than 40 years; what is even more impressive, however, is the incredible sense of enthusiasm he brings both to his journey and to his writing.
Colin Thubron seems to be a writer undaunted by immensity, either of place or plot. He has written, memorably, about China (Behind the Wall) and contemporary Russia (Among the Russians). Here, in his latest book, which happens to be a novel, he cheerfully takes on Joseph Conrad and magic realism, transplanting a Heart of Darkness narrative to the jungles of Peru, and does so with a precision and a brevity whose effects linger in the imagination.
It’s 1786, and John Holdsworth has lost everything: his son to drowning, his wife to grief, and his home and bookshop to financial difficulties.He’s approached by an agent of Lady Oldershaw with an unusual commission. Her only son, Frank, had been a student at Cambridge University, but is now committed to a madhouse after claiming to have seen a ghost – the wife of a colleague that had died in mysterious circumstances a few months previously.
Henry and Catherine Tilney are content with their married life: a comfortable parsonage, their dogs, and one another. The idea of returning to Bath a year after they first met there seems like it can only add to their happiness; but Catherine finds that Bath still carries social dangers that she must learn to navigate. What is the nature of Henry's past relationship with a beautiful young woman? Why is a rakish baronet paying Catherine such particular attention? Is General Tilney going to marry the woman known in Bath as The Merry Widow-and what did she have to do with her husband's death? And will Henry ever be able to keep his Newfoundland out of the river?
A wonderfully provocative and appealing novel, from the much-loved author of Anywhere But Here and A Regular Guy, her first in ten years. It tells the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood.
